There is an increasing awareness of the need to protect children from inadvertently gaining access to medications and other potentially harmful products. Ingestion of only one or two pills of a prescribed medication can prove fatal to a child. There is a further increasing awareness of the necessity to provide containers that are readily and easily opened by an adult, that is, any person having the cognitive ability to understand the instructions for opening a container, which requires certain manipulation and manual dexterity. Such persons are assumed to have the ability to understand that the act of opening such a container to gain access to the contents is a deliberate action, and is only undertaken when there is a necessity to attain access to such contents.
There are several conventional, so-called, “childproof” or “child-resistant” containers in the market, which are generally employed by dispensing pharmacists for use in filling prescriptions, where the prescription requires that the pharmacist dispense one or more of a plurality of pills, tablets, gel-caps, capsules, or the like. For example, the container may include a “push-and-turn” closure for pill containers, or an “arrow-alignment” closure for pill containers.
The “push-and-turn” system for containers conventionally refers to a system in which the closure or cap for the container must be pushed axially downwardly and rotated at the same time to open the container. The “arrow alignment” system for containers conventionally refers to a system in which an arrow on the closure or cap must be aligned with an arrow on the container, such as one which is embossed on the container, in order to open the container. However, these containers are often complicated for adults to use.
Conventional container assemblies of the type where the cap or closure is integral with the container may include a hinge that pivotally affixes the cap and the container, and in some cases have a fixed protrusion (also referred to as a “thumb tab”) attached to the cap that is configured to assist in the opening of the cap. This fixed protrusion is typically opposite the hinge, and thus acts as a lever to allow the intended user to open the container when a sufficient force is applied under the fixed protrusion. Such containers can often easily be opened by children.
Therefore it is an object of the invention to provide an improved cap and container system that is child resistant, yet easily opened by an adult.